{"product_id":"progress-trap-the","title":"Progress Trap, The","description":"The idea of progress, one of the animating ideas of Western civilization, has now gone global. From Marxism and neoliberalism to today’s mutant identity politics, it offers a framework of knowledge and confidence: an assurance that things will get better and that history is on our side. However, in doing this it creates a form of authority that is simultaneously imaginary and dishonest, resting on confidence in a future that is really contingent and unknowable. In The Progress Trap, Ben Cobley looks at this progressive mindset as a form of power, conferring a right to act and control others. ‘Change’, ‘transformation’ and the ‘new’ are the superior values, meaning destruction of the old: people, cultures and nature. It is a trap into which nearly all of us fall at times, so attractive are its stories and familiar its techniques. Hard-hitting but thoughtful, the book is a meditation on the sinister consequences of the progressive way of being: for ourselves, for our democracy, for our art and for the pursuit of real knowledge.","brand":"John Wiley and Sons Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56423882195279,"sku":"9781509567621","price":38.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0061\/0372\/8217\/files\/9781509567621_1-progress-trap-the.jpg?v=1763180972","url":"https:\/\/www.suomalainen.com\/products\/progress-trap-the","provider":"Suomalainen.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}